Testimony began Monday, Dec. 16, in the trial of a Marine charged with domestic violence and torture after prosecutors say he pocket-dialed his girlfriend while beating her, inadvertently leaving a voicemail recording of the assault.

Anthony Rollins, 34, a gunnery sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, also is charged with a count of domestic violence in a second incident involving the same woman and one count of trying to dissuade the victim from testifying. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held with bail set at $5 million.

“What he is, is a man who likes to abuse women,” prosecutor Tim Cross said, telling jurors that the victim in this case is far from Rollins’ first.

“He almost got away with it,” Cross said, before playing the recording for jurors during his opening statement at the Southwest Justice Center in French Valley.

Defense attorney Richard Briones-Colman told jurors that Rollins’ conduct looks bad, but roughness was a normal and consensual part of his relationships. He said Rollins made the recording intentionally during an argument in which he was trying to prevent his girlfriend from driving drunk.

On the recording, the woman can be heard screaming and crying in their Murrieta home.

“Stop crying,” Rollins says. “Don’t fight.”

Cross described Rollins as a master manipulator who got away with beating women for years and thought their suffering was funny.

According to a previous girlfriend, Rollins was proud of his behavior, telling her “the Marine Corps trained me to be that way,” court records say.

Briones-Colman said the alleged victim, like Rollins’ previous girlfriends, had a “high-drama” relationship with him that included shockingly rough sex and physical fights, and that she enjoyed it.

“He’s not a good boyfriend,” he said. “It’s not nice, but it’s not a reason to convict somebody.”

In the Dec. 1, 2012 struggle captured in the recording, the victim, who is 5-foot-1 and weighs 94 pounds, suffered skull fractures, amnesia, bleeding on the brain and hearing loss, court records say. She remembers little of the attack, aside from fleeting images such as Rollins cutting the heads off her teddy bears, Cross told jurors.

The woman had spent the evening out with friends during which Rollins sent her a vulgar, angry text message. She woke up the next morning vomiting with a severe headache. Rollins told her she got drunk and fell down the stairs.

Despite the severity of her injuries, she didn’t receive medical care until Dec. 3. After days in bed, she asked Rollins to take her to a hospital, court records say.

The woman suspected Rollins had assaulted her, but she said she was in extreme pain and not thinking clearly for weeks because of her injuries, court records say. Weeks later, she discovered the Dec. 1 voicemail from Rollins on her cell phone and eventually called police.

When Rollins was arrested in February, he gave several explanations for the recording Cross said. Initially, he said it was the sound of rough sex.

In addition to the victim in this case, several other women from Rollins’ past are expected to testify, though Rollins is not charged with any crimes against them.

Follow Sarah Burge on Twitter @sarahkburge or online at blog.pe.com/crime-blotter